JulianRota
2d ago
Haven't ridden in a Tesla with FSD in a while, but I have ridden in Waymos a number of times when visiting cities that have them. It's an impressively good experience IMO, though the price is not really noticeably lower than Uber etc. Naturally, supposedly super-progressive NYC (where I currently live) seems to be dragging their feet on approving them to operate here, while many redder cities seem to be much more enthusiastic about it.
JulianRota
5d ago
I do do that 5-10k steps a day, which is walking at a brisk pace back and forth to my current job in the heart of NYC. It may not sound like that much to some, but when Covid WFH limited my walking for a couple years and I started up again, it was pretty tiring and left me a little sore for the first couple of weeks. I don't do any strength training right now, but I do train Muai Thai roughly once a week.
I don't think I point my toes while sleeping. Once in a while, I do that deliberately to crack my ankle, which I don't think has ever triggered one of these types of cramps.
Speaking of kind of exercise related and weird muscle issues, I also occasionally get a restless or antsy feeling in my quads and I think also calves. It doesn't seem to be related to the cramps, I think. It's basically a physical need to stand, walk, or even run. Once in a while, it feels intense enough that I just need to go outside and run a few blocks. Pretty weird I guess.
Anyways, hopefully consuming substantially more electrolytes daily will help some.
JulianRota
5d ago
No clue, I mostly eat meats and vegetables in forms that don't have nutrition labels, so I don't even have much idea of how to get an accurate estimate of that.
JulianRota
5d ago
I already drink a lot of water pretty much every day. In fact, I had the idea that might be contributing to the problem, from washing away electrolytes. I did start adding a packet of this Liquid IV electrolyte supplement that we have available at work to the water I drink with my workday lunch, which has a pretty comparable amount of potassium to a banana reportedly. It may take the better part of a year to see if it really does the trick though, due to the low frequency.
JulianRota
6d ago
Hmm, I'd always thought of Charley Horses as mild cramps that happened while exercising. This is severe pain while resting. Some searches claim that is a variant of the same thing, so maybe it is, and the treatment seems similar. At least that gives it a probable actual name.
JulianRota
6d ago
So, about that weird medical issue that has me wondering if I ought to eat more salt, and other electrolytes.
I get these painful calf cramps once in a while. The frequency is generally in the neighborhood of every 6 months to a year or so, probably sometimes longer intervals. It's hard to be completely sure, since I only started noting down the dates of them for the last couple of times. I'm not even sure how long ago it really started, though it's definitely years. I'm pretty sure it started at some point after I started eating Keto 8-10ish years ago, though not soon enough after to be an obvious correlation.
So far, it's only happened when I'm lying down, and have been for a while. When it happens, it hits with no particular signs or warning, one of my calf muscles instantly cramps up pretty hard. It's pretty painful, and if I grab the muscle, it feels like a brick under my skin. I think it lasts around 10 seconds or so, but it's hard to be sure, since I've never timed it. Afterward, the muscle feels sore, as if I just did a tough workout, which usually lasts for hours, but no other lingering pain or damage. It only hits one leg, and I think it's random which one. If it were to happen while I was standing, I think I'd probably fall down, though it never has yet.
At first, it seemed to happen most commonly after a night of moderate to heavy drinking. After some searching around, I got the idea that it might be related to an electrolyte deficiency of some kind. I started preparing and drinking a glass of electrolyte water (sodium, potassium, magnesium) every time I came home after drinking before going to bed. This seems to have more or less worked, and it didn't happen for quite a while. Then it started happening again, but not after drinking at all, infact no particular correlation to anything I can tell so far. I'm wondering if maybe it is still related to electrolyte issues, and would be helped by consuming more electrolytes in general regardless of activity, or even just more salt possibly.
I'm generally in good health, don't have any other health issues, and aren't on any prescription medications. I pretty consistently do 5k-10k+ steps every day based on my phone's step counter. Eating moderately keto has helped keep my weight in check.
I haven't tried to ask any proper doctors about this. I don't really go to any much anyways. I don't have much confidence that I'd get any kind of useful answer from them on this issue. If there was some way take a blood test immediately after, or even before, one happened, that might give some useful hard information, but it seems rather impractical due to how infrequent it is. Possibly a urine sample from right after would be reasonably practical and useful. Or maybe my attempts to consume more electrolytes will mean it goes away entirely anyways. Just thought I'd post it here in case anyone is curious or might have some kind of insight.
JulianRota
9d ago
Finished reading The Salt Fix. It did do a pretty good job of making the case that the FDA's current RDAs for salt are bunk and the claims that even lower salt limits as being supposedly "heart healthy" due to blood pressure control are basically made-up. It seemed a little vague about what to actually do, though, besides saying it's basically fine to "salt to taste", or eat as much as you think tastes good, and talk to your doctor.
So I guess it made me feel more comfortable with consuming significantly more salt, which I have been thinking about doing for a weird medical issue I have. I suppose I ought to explain that a bit better, but I think I'll hold it for a Wellness Wednesday thread, to save filling up the book thread with my weird medical issues.
JulianRota
23d ago
Currently reading The Salt Fix by Dr. James DiNicolantonio, because I got curious about whether I am or am not eating too much salt. Hoping to come out of reading it with some clue how to get an idea of whether I am eating too much, not enough, or an okay amount of salt. My attempts to get some idea about this from other sources has not been going very well so far, other than to make me think, eh it's probably fine.
JulianRota
1mo ago
Moral of the story: If you are good at driving drunk, you can get away with it!
I used to drive drink pretty regularly. I've pretty much stopped years ago, because I started to get a feeling that eventually, something really bad was going to happen, more in the car crash department than getting busted. Nevertheless, I did get the impression that it was actually pretty tough to get caught driving drunk. I think most of the people who do are either waaaaaay too drunk, like can barely even walk, never mind the official legal limit, or are really crappy drivers even sober. Or are the kind of person who becomes a major asshole when they get drunk. If you avoid it when you're really super drunk and apply a modest amount of caution, you're pretty unlikely to ever get caught. Mostly things like, try to be just a bit slower and more cautious than usual, avoid tricky locations or where cops are likely to be, avoid prime just-after-bars-close hours, keep your equipment in good condition, etc.
The natural flip-side is, I have some sympathy for people who were mostly acting decent-ish but got unlucky one time, but people who manage to get multiple DUI charges are usually habitually driving waaaaay too drunk, don't take it as a wake-up call at all, and pretty much deserve what they got.
JulianRota
1mo ago
Which model was that? Instead of saying "well yeah use a better model", I thought I'd try to replicate it. So I just went to google.com in incognito and dropped in what is the current value of 0.035 ounces of gold, and it gave a good, accurate answer from it's AI, with a correct calculation and a link to the page it got the current price from. That's the regular Google search interface and no login, so it's got to be the most heavily cost-optimized model they operate.
I don't generally make a habit of trying to seek out the dumbest-possible AIs, and I know they're non-deterministic, but I haven't ever seen one make that kind of totally braindead error before.
JulianRota
1mo ago
Gogol Bordello, about 4 months ago. In my 40s. I did have a good time, though I only stayed in a few minutes, at least partly because I still had my winter coat on and I got too hot. If not that, it would probably be because I don't really have that much energy anymore. No after-effects, and I would do it again. I do also typically wear glasses by the way. If I was going to stay in for more than a few minutes, I'd probably want to stash them somewhere safe (I can see mostly okay-ish without them), because it seems likely they might get accidentally knocked off at some point and trampled.
It's mostly pretty safe IMO, though you'll want to watch the action for at least a few minutes first to make sure it isn't a too-intense one. I guess I don't really go to the type of concerts that have super-intense mosh pits. Given that, I've never seen or heard of anyone being significantly injured in one. They generally seem to be pretty nice about not involving anyone who doesn't want to be there, helping up anyone who falls down, etc. Traumatic brain injuries don't seem any more likely to me than during any other sort of moderately athletic activity.
JulianRota
2mo ago
Well geographically it seems to make sense. The current population of the island is 3k-ish English-speaking people who consider themselves to be British, so it's a non-starter politically.
What I don't get is, why doesn't Argentina send over a couple of poor struggling families with their adorable kids who just want to work as fishermen or ranchers or something instead of warships and soldiers. Just a couple get established, then a few more families come over, and they bring their extended families over too. Call anyone who objects racist. Next thing you know, presto, a simple majority of the population now wants to be Argentinian, and they can make a good case to take over the island without a shot fired. Even if you think the whole Great Replacement stuff is a "baseless conspiracy theory", what's to stop any interested party from doing it on purpose? At such a low population, it wouldn't take all that many people.
JulianRota
2mo ago
I agree about the armchair warriors bit. I do think their motivation for the war is much deeper and more fundamental and not really like Putin thought he could grab Ukraine all quick and easy and is now in over his head. Instead, I think the entire Russian power structure is existentially petrified of invasion from the West. It's all long memories about how horrifying Operation Barbarossa was to be on the receiving end of - this also fits in with how they talk about "denazifying" Ukraine. This is why they're willing to make incredible sacrifices to ensure that Ukraine remains in their sphere of influence. That also explains how there doesn't seem to be all that much discontent in Russia about how this war is going. I'm not super confident in my ability to determine exactly how much unrest there really is in Russia, but I would have expected to see more signs of it with how much of a grind this war seems to be for them.
On the IT side, I also discovered the Ukrainian scam call center thing - big article about it in Russian, Google Translate works pretty well. Apparently there's a ton of these call centers actively working to scam random Russians out of money and blackmail them into committing various petty, and maybe sometimes not so petty, crimes. Thinking from the Ukrainian side, it's understandable that they'd lean into that sort of thing and attempt to integrate it with their formal intelligence agencies to gain an asymmetric advantage when so many things are stacked against them. But then from the Russian side, that is a much more reasonable explanation for why they're cracking down so hard on the communication and messaging systems.
JulianRota
2mo ago
Never heard of that podcast either.
I try to make an effort to understand Russia's point of view enough to get an idea of why they think it's necessary to fight this war, and why they have shown such dogged persistence in it despite disappointing results of their opening moves and staggering casualty counts. I still can't see how they would think it's a good idea to start throwing nukes around now, especially at the other European powers. It seems to me like it would read to a lot of people as an admission that they are unable to achieve a result they consider favorable on the battlefield with conventional weapons, which isn't going to be much of a plus for their standing in the region. I also find it unlikely that there are any good targets in Europe for "tactical" nuclear weapons right now. It seems highly likely to me that any use of nuclear weapons against formally uninvolved NATO nations at this point would escalate to strategic use exactly as fast as pretty much everyone has always expected. I suppose there's no way to know what might change in the next year, but it's hard to imagine what could happen that would change that.
So yeah, I think it's just Russia supporters being all butthurt that they haven't been doing all that hot.
JulianRota
2mo ago
Finished reading Andy Weir's Hail Mary, and I watched the movie too. I still think both were great overall, though the movie traded off leaving out some of the less important details and hamming things up a little for some amazing visuals. Not to spoiler things too much, but I think the ending does show Weir trying to get a little more into character development side of things, though it's probably still not his strongest point. The Sci-Fi is a little hand-wavy on the details of a few things, but probably no more than needed for future tech, and mostly does a good job of sticking to its own rules.
JulianRota
3mo ago
I'm no expert either, but it strikes me as being 4 spotlights doing some kind of light show, and I'm assuming the shifting of the center point around in the frame is due to the camera moving around. It's hard to see the details you describe from that video, but I wouldn't be surprised if the cloud conditions as far as altitude and density made it reasonable for ordinary spotlights to look like that. I'd more wonder whether it seemed reasonable for there to be some event in an appropriate location to have a spotlight show like that.
There's also the obligatory nerdy gotcha that it stands for Unidentified Flying Object, so it is a UFO by definition if you don't know what it is, but that doesn't make it an actual alien spacecraft or anything.
JulianRota
3mo ago
Is there a cost factor to it?
I'm near one of the stadium locations. I'm not really that into soccer, but I might be inclined to check out a game just for the novelty factor of it. But then, the cheapest tickets are currently ~$1400, plus probably a few hundred more in incidentals, like transportation, food, drinks, etc. That's a bit above what I'm willing to spend to check out something I'm not super into. Maybe like $50-100ish for that.
If you're not all pretty wealthy, that could generate some conflict over who's paying for who, who can really afford that, does anybody owe anyone else anything, etc.
JulianRota
3mo ago
I've been reading Andy Weir's Hail Mary, since I liked Artemis. About 2/3 of the way through, and I think it's great! Good Sci-Fi, and the stakes are certainly exciting. I suppose the character development might be considered a bit weak, but eh, that's most Sci-Fi. The character does seem rather similar to the similarly isolated character from The Martian. It does also tempt me to make a more general post somewhere about nonlinear storytelling and how it's done well and poorly. Short version is, I think Weir's books are good examples of doing it well.
I also finished Day Of Ascension by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Feeling a little meh about it. It's an okay story I guess, but it seemed a little predictable, and it feels a little tough to get into that universe.
JulianRota
3mo ago
Perhaps it is a bit ideological. I would note in turn that widespread obesity is a relatively new phenomenon. I am not the person to know for sure exactly what change caused it, but clearly something changed in the last ~100 years to cause such widespread obesity. Maybe it's better to fix that, whatever it is, than for everyone to go on medication for life. Keto, or any other diet, may not be perfect, but I'm skeptical that there's anything worse about eating in a way more like some of our ancestors did than going on a medication that was approved for human use not quite 10 years ago. Where is the concern for what the long-term health effects of that might be?
I would ask in turn, do you think there is any possibility somebody's diet could be so obviously bad that they really should stop eating that, whether or not they go on medication as well? Like multiple 2-liters of sugary soda a day, multiple bags of chips, tubs of ice cream, etc? Do you agree with DradisPing's implication that it is completely impossible for anybody to lose weight and keep it off with dietary changes?
JulianRota
3mo ago
From what I've learned, I don't think there is a universal dietary weight-loss solution. I think there's too much individual variation in how peoples' digestive systems work. Too many people have reported success with a wide variety of diet types, often ones that contradict each other. That's why I think any individual seeking to lose weight should try several and see how their body responds, like a month or two each. Try weight loss drugs only after you've tried several diet types and failed to make much progress. I think it's probably best to avoid the worst types of food even if you've decided to turn to weight loss drugs. Consuming tons of junk food and sugary drinks every day just can't be good for you.
For myself, I went on Keto, and it worked amazingly well for me. I started in about 2018 and was able to lose weight and have kept it off. I actually got a little bit too skinny for a while, and backed off to a more sustainable level. At no point did I ever actually cut calories, feel hungry, or lack energy. I feel more and more consistent energy on it, and several other minor medical problems seem to have cleared up too. Granted, I was never at the 350lb level, but I decided I needed to fix my diet when I had gained 10-20 pounds, not wait until I had gained 200lbs. I have met several people who have been able to lose hundreds of pounds with it though.
I will say again, and more clearly, I do not assert that this particular diet, or any other particular diet, will definitely work for everyone. But I did ask thread OP what, if anything, they had tried so far as far as their diet, not trying to sell them on any particular diet, since they didn't mention a thing about it. I do think it's best to give several different diet types a best-effort try before turning to weight loss medications.
JulianRota
3mo ago
The good news for thread OP is, basically none of that is true at all. You really should engage with some of the things we've learned about diet and nutrition in the last 30 years before you opine so confidently.
The key trick with fixing your diet and actually losing weight is that you have to take the morality out of it. It's a science experiment, not a religious law. If you want to lose weight, you need to find a diet that works for you. Not working includes not being able to stick to it, feeling hungry, making too much effort, and not having enough energy.
Calories in = calories out is not true; it's a vast oversimplification of how hunger and nutrition work. You don't need to count calories and stick to a limit to lose weight. Most of the failure of many peoples' dieting is a religious/ideological devotion to these terrible ideas about dieting from the 1990s - that you need to treat it as a moral failure that you are not able to stick to an ineffective diet. That is only a road to feeling even worse about yourself and still being fat.
Still being hungry after eating is not some magic thing that happens for "whatever reason", it's a specifically engineered outcome. Many foods are deliberately engineered to not make you feel full so that you keep eating. Obviously you're going to not feel full if you gorge yourself on foods designed to make you not feel full! If you're doing that, in my opinion, you need to fix that before you go on fancy drugs. Exactly as if, if you're doing heroin, and it's causing bad things to happen to your body, you should stop doing heroin, not look for even more drugs to counteract the effects.
JulianRota
3mo ago
What have you done as far as your diet? I have tended to think that diet is by far the most important thing in body fat level. It's hard to say much, though, without some idea of what your diet is like now and what, if anything, you've tried. But I don't think any level of physical activity can overcome a really bad diet.
I'm skeptical of weight loss drugs too. I never liked the idea of taking multiple drugs to counter-act each other. Similarly, this might be more of a personal ideology, but I never liked the idea of eating a terrible diet and trying to counter-act the body-fat effects of that with drugs. Why not fix the diet first? It may be another thing, though, if you've tried absolutely everything on the diet front and can't make any progress.
JulianRota
3mo ago
It depends on what one considers to be ethical or unethical. Which is a substantial problem - I'm not sure even your "obvious" examples are really that unethical.
Third world "sweatshops" are a bit of a mixed bag. Sure, they're a harder day's work than being a Starbucks barista. But is anyone actually forced to work on one? As far as I know, that's never been a thing. That means they can't get workers unless they're a better deal than their local competition, usually subsistence farming, as far as time and difficulty of work versus payment. In addition to that, they bring foreign currency and industrial infrastructure into the nation, get some local laborers and probably managers used to how to operate an industrial business. That's a big part of how you actually lift a third-world country into the first world. And the companies are getting cheaper labor, yeah, but they're not going to bother bringing industry into that country without getting something for it. Yeah, it's sad not everyone in the world is a first-world latte-sipping poet or something, but you don't get there from subsistence farming by wishes and magic, you get there by gradual economic progress, some of which might look like "sweatshops".
Even if we granted that they were "unethical" somehow, would that make Taylor Swift "unethical" automatically? As far as I know, her money comes mostly from ticket sales, album sales, other royalties, and such things. Making merch is probably a tiny part of her budget however it's done. If that's enough to make her "unethical", is anyone with any actual power "ethical"?
Not paying employees what some uninvolved party thinks is the fair value of their labor seems a bit iffy too. Usually neglected is the stability value they get too. Owners risk losing some or all of their money if the business does poorly, but the workers either continue to get paid, or get fired at worst. They don't stand to lose much. That's worth something too.
Focusing exclusively on billionaires seems a bit iffy to me too. It seems to me, what we're really concerned with here is power. Yes, billionaires have a moderate amount of power, but they're not the only ones. Why shouldn't we focus on Government too, both elected and un-elected officials too? They're the ones with the power to tax us, fine us, imprison us, start wars, etc. Why isn't any government official who doesn't magically make the world operate like some activist wants also "unethical"? Billionaires can only create great products and services we all like to make money, and they lose it again if their businesses fail. Governments can impose terrible economic systems like marxism on a nation, causing millions to starve to death.
I did happen upon this link trying to check out where they were really operating and why. Apparently, though they officially operate in ~10 cities, the total number of cars they have in most of them are "several dozen". Only in Phoenix, LA, and San Francisco do they have 500+.
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